On Monday March 10th, hundreds of protesters assembled in front of the Philadelphia Federal Building demanding that President Obama not issue a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed 1,700 mile pipeline that would transport oil from the tar sands of Northern Canada to oil refineries in Texas.

The State Department contracted a consulting firm with ties to American oil interests to issue a report on the expected climate impacts of the pipeline—predictably reporting that the impacts would be negligible. Wielding brooms to symbolically “sweep out corruption” from the State Department, the protestors called for an end to the climate crisis as well as the displacement and poisoning of poor and indigenous people caused by tar sands oil extraction. These crisis situations would only be worsened by the proposed pipeline, contrary to the State Department’s commissioned report.

Cheri Honkala, joined the protest, making the connection between environmental and economic justice.

“Poor people are the most affected by the climate crisis,” stated Honkala.

“The Democrats and Republicans have thrown indigenous and poor people down the stairs again and again. This is no different. We should not be building new oil pipelines. The promises of jobs from oil companies are false.”

“We can create long-term jobs by building a sustainable economy. The Green New Deal will provide jobs, housing, health care, and education for all, and it will address climate change and the environmental crisis,” Ms Honkala said.

Anti-Poverty campaigners stood with other protesters and delivered a message that the fight against environmental injustice cannot be separate from the fight for economic human rights.

The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign will continue connecting environmental, economic, and other struggles for justice with the Earth Day to May Day Global Climate Convergence this spring. From April 22 to May 1, people and organizations will join together in coordinated action and collaboration across fronts of struggle and national borders to harness the transformative power we already possess as a thousand separate movements. As environmental, economic, and political crises intensify, the Convergence is a unifying call for a solution as big as the crisis.

Honkala was arrested Monday afternoon in an act of civil disobedience, along with roughly two dozen other protesters blocking the Federal Building’s doors. She was released later that night.

In the first half hour, Dr. Rasmus raises ’10 Unanswered Questions’ about the political coup of February 22 including:

– Who were the snipers?

– Why is no investigation underway?

– What is the composition of the neo-fascist parties on the street (Svoboda, Right Sector, UPA, etc.)?

– What official positions have they assumed in the new interim Ukrainian government?

– Why did US undersecretary of State, Virginia Nuland, admit to $5 billion spent by the US on Ukrainian politics?

– What are Nuland’s ‘Neocon’ credentials, and is there a ‘deep government’ in the US driving US foreign policy?

Dr. Rasmus also raises the question of what are the ‘crony capitalist’ connections in the Ukraine with US business sectors. Steve Lendman then gives his view of the Crimea referendum and perspective on the Ukrainian crisis, which he calls the worst and most dangerous since the 1962 Berlin crisis.

The Ukraine economy is a basket case—one of the weakest in the world. That was true before the events of February 20, 2014 and the collapse of the Yanukovych regime. It is increasingly true since, and will continue to deteriorate even more rapidly in the weeks to come.

What are the dimensions of the current economic crisis in the Ukraine? And its origins in the preceding decade?

“…The proto-fascist street parties are dominating and directing the ‘outside’ strategy, while the ‘crony capitalists’ on the ‘inside’ in Parliament are being played like a violin by western interests. The EU and USA may be in the process of consolidating their inside strategy with upcoming elections, but they may find controlling the radical, ultra-right elements, and denying those elements a real role in government, may prove more difficult than they think. The historical analogy of Weimar Germany capitalists in the early 1930s thinking they could control the Nazis in the street is not totally inappropriate here. Nor is the concern that the latter street elements could drive the situation toward a military confrontation.

“Indeed, perhaps the greatest concern at the moment is that the radical street elements may retain influence in the situation sufficient to push the new Ukrainian government into a direct military confrontation with Russia before the May elections—and before the EU and USA can effectively neutralize their influence.”

Hillary and Other Assorted Barbarians at Russia’s Gate

Wed, 03/05/2014 – 16:08 — Glen Ford

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

The United States is more than just an ally to fascists in Ukraine and everywhere else; the American South provided an historical model for fascism. “The fascist order of the pre-Sixties Solid South was simply a domestic expression of U.S. Manifest Destiny – the national religion.” The fascists – both local and imperial – have laid siege to Russia. Read more…

Reading the March 2 editorial in the New York Times on the so-called revolution in Ukraine, I couldn’t help but marvel at how easily elite opinion makers in the U.S. can call for the use of public resources to bail out the people and government of Ukraine without significant opposition or even serious questions.

Somewhat lost amid the turmoil abroad and Academy Award fever in the U.S., the White House yesterday was the site of a major student protest against the Keystone XL pipeline. About a thousand people, mainly college students, turned up to urge President Obama not to approve the pipeline, which has become a symbol of the environmental movement against climate change.

Close to 400 of the protesters were arrested after using plastic ties to fasten themselves to White House fences; the exact number of arrests, as 350.org founder Bill McKibben pointed out, was particularly resonant:

“398 young people arrested at #xldissent at WH today, coincidentally the exact current concentration of co2 in air”

Americans might be fooled by mass media misinformation, but Venezuelans know what is really happening in their country.

The misinformation in most of the media about the protests in Venezuela is astounding. Often the opposite of reality is repeated as if it were true. Americans who rely on the corporate mass media, politicians and corrupted nonprofits might fall for these tales, but Venezuelans know what is really happening.

~ Margaret Flowers serves as Secretary of Health in the General Welfare Branch, and Kevin Zeese serves as Attorney General in the Justice Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet.